Julia Butterfly Hill is the name of a woman aged 27 who became world famous for spending two years of her life on a thousand-year-old redwood tree named Luna in Northern California. Her aim was to prevent it from being felled and to make people aware of the uncontrolled logging that is not even sparing the remaining 3% of the ancient redwood forests of our Earth.
As she recounts in her book, 'The Legacy of Luna'(HarperCollins Publishers), after almost a year of intensive therapy to recover from a very bad car accident, in the summer of 1997 Julia left Arkansas for a trip to the West Coast with some friends. She wanted to travel to find a new sense of purpose in her life, now
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| Redwoods, Rockfeller Forest, California. |
This is how she described that magic moment: "When I entered the majestic cathedral of the redwood forest for the first time my spirit knew it had found what it was searching for. I dropped to my knees and began to cry because I was so overwhelmed by the wisdom, energy and spirituality housed in this holiest of temples."
When she found out that Headwaters Forest was threatened, being still unprotected despite almost twenty years of campaigns and protests, Julia felt she had to do something. By November 1997 she got involved in the Luna tree-sit. A group of activists had organized this action to stop the chainsaws of Pacific Lumber, the timber company which had struck a deal with the government and was therefore allowed to keep destroying this invaluable heritage in the name of profit.
"When I climbed into Luna"she told the audience at her book’s presentations in Milan and Turin, "I thought I would stay there for 3 weeks to a month. Then I realized that people need to identify with another person in order to understand things that do not affect them directly. I had to put my life at risk, to be physically threatened just like Luna was, so that people could relate to her situation."
Julia only climbed down in December 1999, after obtaining protection for Luna and a nearly three-acre buffer zone. She achieved this by resisting for 738 days to the attacks of people who tried to make her give in by resorting to any possible means. As an example, they tried to prevent her support team from providing her with vital supplies and put her life at risk with a helicopter flying dangerously close to her platform. Besides, she had to survive the inclemency of the weather and the all but luxurious accommodations provided by a small platform placed in the canopy of a tree at 180 ft. from the ground.
"On my platform", she explained, "I only had a few tarps and several layers of clothing to protect me from the cold. At a certain point I was more broad than tall! I went through many hardships, there were times when I thought I was going to give it up and climb down. I am only human, I am no wonder-woman, and my time in Luna was no fairy tale. I laugh, I cry and I can be scared, just like any human being. However, my sight from the tree extended for miles in every direction. So I could see the beauty of the forests, and at the same time I could see their destruction. This reminded me constantly of the reason why I was there."
However, there are people, including some politicians, who think an "extreme action"like Julia’s is comparable to terrorism. She counters that the physical occupation of a tree is the last opportunity to protect it from being destroyed by people who think they can do whatever they want with it just because it is on their land, on 'private property’.
"To me this property right means more responsibility", she explains. "It does not mean owning the land and being able to do what you want with it, but rather having the duty to be good stewards. And you cannot be a good steward if you destroy the trees that give us the air we breathe and the water we drink, and provide stability for the land and for the climate; you cannot be a good steward if you destroy the resources of our Earth that are our future."
"When we see an injustice", she adds, "we often don’t do anything because we are afraid of losing something, for instance other people’s approval. We are afraid of being criticized or laughed at. We are afraid of losing our comforts and our privileges.
Civil disobedience is one of the most powerful tools, in the environmental as well as in the social field. It means recognizing that laws are made by human beings, who can make mistakes. Living by unjust laws means allowing injustice to happen. Standing up for higher laws is the way to achieve change. And it is exactly through civil disobedience that most changes in human history have been made."
During the two years she spent living with Luna, Julia could gain a new outlook on Life and all living beings, and she rediscovered the roots of the ancient communion between humans and the rest of Creation.
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| Julia Butterfly Hill, author of "The Lagacy of Luna" published by Harper Collins. | |
Together with other people, Julia created the Circle of Life Foundation, and she continues to dedicate her life to the protection of forests and Life. Since she came down from the tree she physically protected for over two years she never stopped working hard, meeting young people, environmental groups and politicians, speaking at conferences, festivals, rock concerts and churches. She had started this communication work when she was living on Luna and continues to do it.
"I work with all these different people and groups", she says, "because the Earth we live on is one and the same. The healing of our Earth needs to start from within us and extend to all her parts. In this process, diversity is a huge wealth that we have to value, because it can enable us to find creative solutions for the common good."
Thus Julia continues to tell the world her story, which "is not the story of the woman who saved a tree by living in it for two years. It is the story of the reasons why I did it. The message is that we can make the difference, we can change things, each and every one of us."
A message that Julia loves to convey to children in particular. This is what she did with her usual energy and enthusiasm during the Tree Day in Mantua, an event sponsored by the Consorzio Pannello Ecologico, a Consortium of furniture manufacturers which use recycled wood only.
An Interview With Julia Butterfly Hill
Redwoods books
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 The Legacy of Luna : The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill (Hardcover - April 2000) $25.00 |  Heart Of A Heroine: Saving the Last Redwoods [ABRIDGED] by Julia Butterfly Hill, Michael Toms(Contributor) (Audio Cassette) $10.95 |
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